The Daughter of Brahma by I. A. R. Wylie (to read list txt) 📕

THE red rim of the sun had already disappeared as David Hurst set out upon his journey, but a fire still burnt in the west, and reflected itself in a sombre glow over the plain and into the face of the lonely traveller. The shadows of the rapid Indian night-fall began to rise. They hovered, delicately lilac, on the outer courts of the sunset, and signalled to their violet and purple sisters who crept up from the east and north, and south, waiting for the moment when they should close in over the drowsy earth. For a fleeting second light and darkness shared their dominion, and in that time of transition David Hurst stood still and waited. He had come fast, and his lips were parted in breathless sobs; his thin face was lifted to the sky, where the first star had risen resplendent, and in his eyes there was a kind of challenge. And suddenly he began to speak aloud. His hands were clenched, rigid at his sides, and his voice rose scarcely above a whisper, but every inflection, every word, was weighed; the frowning brows proclaimed a desperate, incoherent thought struggling for utterance.

"God, I don't know who you are or where you are. I didn't even love you until perhaps now. I didn't love you in the church nor the you Mr. Eliot told me about. You were not beautiful enough. I loved my mother and Di. They are beautiful I never thought of anything else but them. I loved them so. I didn't know God, they don't want me I'm not any good to them I'm no good at anything. I'm lame and ugly, and stupid, and a coward. I quite understand. I couldn't love myself. I hate ugly things. And mother does too. I know how it feels. Take me back! I couldn't bear it. I should always be thinking people hated me and I should always be alone. Nothing beautiful could ever care for me or or belong to me. And I'm no good. I've never prayed properly to you before. I didn't love you. You were church and Mr. Eliot and dull psalms and Sundays. I didn't want you. But I want you now. Out here you are different. You are the stars and the sky, and you are beautiful. You are a long way off, but I haven't any one else but you now. I'm not going on my knees to you worshipping, as Mr. Eliot calls it because I'm sure you can't care for that sort of thing. I shouldn't I should much rather people stood up and looked me straight in the face and said what they wanted, and didn't try to butter me up first. Of course, I know you may not care about me either, but I think you ought to be sorry when you make mistakes and put ugly, helpless things into the world where they are no good. Take me back to you, if you can, and make me different strong and clever and like my mother, so that she and Di won't hate me and and laugh at me. For Christ's sake--" he broke off, and finished "--because you made me."

For a moment he stood quite still, but gradually the expression of strained concentration passed, the clenched hands relaxed. It was as though all his strength had fought in that effort at self-explanation, and, now that he had succeeded, a kind of peace crept over him. And presently he turned and went on his way. The path widened. The corn-fields fell back on either hand like a receding tide, and out of the open space the dark outline of a native dwelling stood out sharply against the background of fading sunset. David Hurst turned a little to the left so as to pass behind it. No lights burned, but he could hear the sound of voices raised in a dull, monotonous chant such as the Brahmans sing at eventide. David Hurst stood and listened, fascinated.

"O Goddess, who dwelleth on the mountains of the west,

Daughter of Brahma, mother of all the world,

Thou child of the lotus-born, from whom cometh joy and sorrow,

Hear us, receive our prayer!

Thou art more lovely than the golden dawn,

Thou art stronger than all gods,

Thou art purer than the lily.

Hear us, receive our prayer.

Illustrious mother, we bring our sacrifice.

It is thou who receiveth and thou who offereth.

We are of thee and thou art of us :

Receive us into thy Paradise!"

The song died into a momentary silence. Then the silver tones of a gong sounded, floating melodiously on the still air to the unseen listener, and four whiterobed figures passed out from the doors of the hut. For a little they stood with their faces raised to the sky in an attitude of solemn contemplation, then turned and followed the path to the hills. David Hurst drew back deeper into the shadow, but he need not have feared detection, for they seemed neither to fear nor suspect the presence of a watcher. He heard their footsteps grow fainter and the soft, full note of the gong, struck at regular intervals, hovered on the stillness like some dreamy memory of sound. Then the distance enveloped it utterly, and there was silence.

David Hurst crept out of his hiding-place. Clumsily but cautiously, he made his way along the edge of the cornfields, his eyes straining through the luminous darkness, his breath coming hi painful, smothered gasps. His lame foot dragged, making a curious, shuffling sound, and when he came once more in sight of the four natives, he stopped a moment and waited. But they had not heard him. They went on in stately silence until the cornfields were passed, and the jungle rose before them like a black wall ascending to the stars. Then once more the gong was struck, louder, more emphatically, as though in its sonorous tone it thought to embrace the world.

"We worship thee, O Goddess. Thou art Brahma;

Thou art the Creator and the Created.

From thee poureth forth the light.

To thee the light returneth.

Receive us into thy Paradise."

The night of the jungle engulfed them. Here the grey, ghostly light which hung over the corn-fields faded into impenetrable gloom. Only overhead, through the twisted branches of the trees, the stars flashed down their signals with malicious brightness.

David Hurst hung back, shivering. Panic and a despairing resolve battled over him. For him this was the end, the place of terror from which no man returneth. He looked over his shoulder. Beyond the stretch of silver plain he could see the warm lights of the town, and, standing apart, the solitary beacon of his home. So might his father have turned and looked back, twelve years ago. He was going along the path his father had trodden but for other reasons not because he was brave, but because he was a coward; not because he was the most worthy to face danger, but because he was worthless. He did not reason it out. Instinct and a blind pain guided him to this desperate self-annihilation. "A weakling a coward," Mrs. Hurst had said, and he knew it was true. His limbs ached with fatigue; fear of the Unknown froze his blood. But just for once for the first and last time he was going to act as though it were not true. Afterwards there was going to be no afterwards but the disgrace would be wiped out. His mother would not have to compare him to those others who bore the name honourably, and be ashamed. He wondered what they would think when they found him there, where it was death to go. Perhaps, after all, she might be a little proud.

He turned back resolutely to the jungle and stumbled on. There was no path now. Thick undergrowth spread itself over the stony ground; the branches of the trees struck him across the face and clutched at him with thorny hands; something moist and slimy writhed under his foot and went hissing into the darkness. The steepness of the ascent caused his breath to come in short, stabbing gasps, and the blood throbbed at his temples; but he never lost sight of the figures which guided him. To his dazed eyes they seemed to float through the gloom like grey ghosts borne by some mysterious wind. A moment later they disappeared. Then terror won the upper hand: the horror of the loneliness, the darkness, the intangible fastened on him like a fanged monster. A scream parted his lips, but was smothered by an effort of the will which left him shaking as with the ague. No not that not to be found because he had cried out like a coward. He felt that the half -uttered scream would have been stamped on his dead face and that his mother would have seen and turned away with scorn in her eyes.

He plunged on blindly through the thicket, hypnotising himself against fear and exhaustion, and suddenly the jungle fell behind like a nightmare and he stood in a vague, half-lighted world that was as the dreamy transition from sleep to wakefulness. Then, little by little, his vision cleared. He saw above him the clear, bejewelled heaven and before him the last ascent, barren of all vegetation and lit by the pale silver of the rising moon. The shadowy figures of his unconscious guides were once more visible but they were no longer alone. From every side others joined them, till it seemed as though a white river flowed up towards the summit, silent save for the reiterated note of the gong, which rang clearer, more compelling in the purer air.

David Hurst waited until the procession had disappeared over the brow of the hill, then followed cautiously. Fear still dogged him. His own shadow, gigantic and misproportioned, seemed to him a silent, gliding enemy who mocked his stumbling movements; in the open space he felt more alone, more helpless. Yet he went on steadily, his will mastering his weakness, a dawning curiosity lending him a new cunning. For he did not want the end to come not yet. There was something for him to see which he had not seen, something wonderful, terrible, the Eternal which Sita had said no unhallowed eye could gaze on unpunished. The punishment was death; his father had been punished and he too would be punished. It was a good thing because he was worthless.

But fear dogged his elbow and called to him to turn back whilst there was yet time, and he went on faster with set teeth until the summit of the hill was reached and the goal lay before him. He crouched in the shadow of a rock and gazed motionless and breathless.

In sheer, passionate wonder, he forgot to be afraid. Out of the bare, arid plateau, a temple arose and stood outlined against the azure sky in towering, majestic solemnity. It was in part roofless, a temple in ruins, yet in that uncertain, magic light magnificent,